


Jabberwocky

by TheLoreleiQueen



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alice: Madness Returns AU, F/M, Gen, I honestly have no idea where I'm going, In a good way though, M/M, My First Fanfic, Nico is Alice, Percy's the Cheshire Cat, Slow Build, That means he's nuts, i think, with the fic or these tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 20:22:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1871169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLoreleiQueen/pseuds/TheLoreleiQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico di Angelo's mother and sister were burned to death in a fire when he was eight years old. Since then, he has been comatose in an asylum for ten years, watching as his Wonderland, his refuge in his mind is slowly corrupted. He just regained control, but now it seems like Wonderland is facing a new enemy. One he can't see....</p><p>And it doesn't help that the dastardly 'Cheshire Cat' Perseus won't leave him well enough alone either.....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jabberwocky

(Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.)  
There’s a key on a chain in front of me. I… I know it, but I’m not sure from where. Suddenly, I begin moving past it, and countless keys and pocket watches keep popping up in my head.  
‘Come now Nico. It’s only a dream.’  
It’s not a dream, it’s… It’s a memory. And it makes me sick!  
The… thing in the crazy hat across from me, sharing in a cup of tea (and trying to send a saw to cut me in half)  
‘Now. Focus. Wait… You’re floating again. Weightless… a cipher. Relax.’  
There’s fighting. So much fighting. And fire. The Queen sits on her throne, her face grotesque and backlit by flames. I’m in hell!  
‘Forget it. Abandon that memory. It’s unproductive. Go. To. Wonderland.’  
I can’t. I’m trapped… in my past.  
‘Sergeant, this boy is badly burned…Call for a doctor!... Will he be alright…?’  
The twisted faces of monsters stare at me, but I bypass them to look at my home, the hotel my mother sister and I were staying in. The one that exploded on top of us.  
‘No, Nico. Discard that delusion. Forget it. Go to Wonderland.’  
I’d rather not, Doctor. My Wonderland’s shattered! It’s dead to me!  
‘Your preference doesn’t signify, boy. Now Nico, where are you?’  
I’m sailing… with a friend. Hmm… It’s different, somehow. Things HAVE changed.  
‘Change is good. It is the first link in the chain of forgetting.’  
What’s happening? Are you mad?  
‘I’m not mad.’  
Rabbit…  
(The Rabbit opposite me is holding a cup of tea, but he doesn’t seem quite… right. His mouth is lolling open and his eyes are twitching.)  
‘That’s not right. What’s he doing there?’  
Rabbit? Is there something wrong?  
(Now Rabbit’s jaw is impossibly wide, and pouring blood. His head cocks to the side at a strange angle, and one of his eyes violently twitches before… popping out of its socket. Something is definitely wrong. I should never have returned here.)  
‘Something wrong?’ Rabbit asks. ‘Raaaaaaaaaather,’ he says, blood still pouring from his mouth and eye, before his head explodes and covers me with a shower of blood. My eyes are wide, and I try to deny what I see, but it is too late.  
No! Not that!  
‘Don’t struggle, Nico. Let the new Wonderland emerge.’  
A sea of tar and blood rises around me, and the faces of monstrosities appear in the sludge before disappearing into its depths. Blood from the Rabbit’s neck is still covering me.  
Pollution. Corruption. It’s… It’s killing me! My Wonderland is destroyed! My Mind is in ruins!  
Hands are rising all around me, and starting to tear and claw at me, dragging me down to the depths.  
‘Forget it, Nico. Abandon that dream. Awake at the sound.’  
I scream as all the monsters in my Wonderland pull the flesh from my skin, and I am pulled under to drown.

********  
‘There, Nico. Better now, aren’t we?’  
Nico glares. ‘My head’s exploded and there’s a steam hammer in my chest.’  
The doctor sighs. ‘Yes well, the cost of forgetting is high.’  
‘My memories make me vomit!’ Nico snarls. ‘What can I-‘  
‘Remember other things.’ The doctor says evenly.  
Nico glares at the wall. ‘I want to forget,’ he says. ‘Who would choose to be alone, imprisoned by their broken memories?’  
‘I’ll set you free, Nico,’ the doctor says. ‘Memories are a curse more often than a blessing,’  
‘So you’ve said,’ Nico grinds out through his teeth. ‘Many times. And I-‘  
The doctor sits in front of Nico. ‘And I’ll say it again. The past must be paid for.’  
The doctor, a thin, reedy man named Octavian, shakes his head. ‘I’m trying to help you, Mr di Angelo. Now, before our… next session, collect those pills from our High Street chemist.’  
Nico sighs. ‘Very well, Doctor.’ He says it reproachfully. He doesn’t like this doctor, but he can make him forget what he wants- no, needs- to forget, so he may as well stay. Nico stands, and the doctor’s next patient walks in, a little boy named Charlie. He looks up at Nico. ‘It’s my turn to forget, Nico!’ he says, and walks back toward Octavian. Nico closes the door behind him, but hears the doctor begin his session with Charlie.  
‘Now Charlie, your Pa was hung for killing your Ma, who beat you. Let’s… forget that, shall we? The past is dead Charlie.’  
Nico moves away from the door, and moves past some of the other kids in the hall on his way downstairs. These kids are all younger than fourteen, and he’s eighteen, but these kids treat him like the dirt lining the Victorian London streets. ‘Too good for the asylum,’ he hears one mutter as he walks past. ‘Doctor’s pet,’ from another one. Nico doesn’t turn his head (he’s so used to these orphans antics it’s not funny) but called back. ‘I’ve earned my bitter tears,’ he said. ‘Want some?’  
The kids kept muttering, but left him alone. Nico walked out the front door and away from the Houndsditch Home for Wayward Orphans, Octavian’s pride and joy. He walked through the open-air market, spying some of Octavian’s kids hanging round the butcher and grocer. He shook his head, but kept walking. He saw Travis and Connor Stoll, two brothers from the orphanage in that group. They were master thieves, and he knew better than risk their wrath if he got in the way of their heist. He continued walking down the streets. He got a few suspicious looks, but he was used to that. His tattered black clothes, scuffed boots and greasy black hair in desperate need of a wash and cut didn’t endear him to most people. Neither did his checkered past.  
A small mrow caught his attention.  
He glanced down and saw a little black kitten at his feet, licking its paws. He smiled a little, a tiny upturn at the corners of his mouth really, and knelt. ‘Here, kitty,’ he said. The cat looked at him with little yellow eyes, mrowed again then hopped away down an alley. Nico sat back on his heels and stared after the cat. He stood up and went after the little cat. He had nothing better to do anyway. The kitten had stopped at the end of the alley and was looking at him expectantly. He snorted and kept following it. The little cat kept on walking a little ahead of Nico, then waiting for him to catch up. The cat led him further through the street side market, eventually leading through another alley. ‘It seems following small creatures into dark holes has become a bit of a habit,’ Nico muttered, referring to the first time he went to Wonderland. ‘I hope it’s not a vice.’  
He followed the cat into a little deserted square of buildings, but the little cretin had disappeared.  
The world went a little blurry around the edges, and there was a hollow clicking sound behind him. He spun around and saw the body of a man and the head of what looked like a cricket with buck teeth. He started to back away, but his back hit a solid surface. He turned, only to find another of the monsters behind him. He backed away and looked around him. They’d surrounded him, and begun to close in. He felt a thin, cold hand on his arm, and yelped, turning around. The cricket monsters blinked out of existence as he laid eyes on the withered old hag in front of him.  
‘My stars and garters, Nico di Angelo,’ she said. ‘Slumming again, are we?’  
‘Nurse Hera,’ he said. ‘What luck. Twice in as many months.’  
‘Out on your own? You look frazzled, dearie,’ she said. ‘Not doing well?’  
‘Not really.’ He muttered.  
‘Well, since you seem to be out here on your own, how would you like to come see the peacocks? Pretty birds, like you.’  
‘I don’t think so,’ Nico replied. ‘Our last visit cost me several pounds and got me nowhere.’  
‘I might recall where that mangy stuffed dog of yours got to,’ she said. Nico shifted his weight, but decided to go with her. That stuffed dog was the only thing his Papa had given him, when Nico was a small boy in Venice.  
Sensing he would follow, Hera shuffled away from him, then stopped at the entrance to the dingy little square. She looked back at him. He hadn’t moved.  
‘Well, come on, dear,’ she said impatiently. ‘I haven’t got all day.’  
He slowly followed her through the dirty streets of Victorian London to her rooftop garden in her building, where her peacocks strutted around in cages. He looked around them all, and his stomach twisted nervously.  
He watched her move away from him, over a small bridge connected to another rooftop, filled with more peacocks in cages.  
He followed her, and watched her scatter seeds to the birds quietly.  
‘Nurse Hera,’ he said. ‘Do you mean to harm me? To send me back to the asylum?’  
She shrugged, her back to him. ‘I won’t say no,’ she said. ‘I’ve a thirst you could photograph.’  
She shuffled away from him, and Nico suddenly felt the hairs on his neck stand up.  
‘Need a drink,’ Hera said, but her voice had changed, sounding scratchy and hoarse. Her shoulders hunched further, and with a couple little jerks of each shoulder, dragon-like wings erupted from each shoulder. She spun toward him, and her eyes glowed yellow, and her face had changed to that of a beast, and her clawed hands were reaching in his direction. She roared, walking towards him, and he backed away. He could feel the roof splintering beneath him, as if responding to his anxiety. A hole in the roof opened up, and he fell into a vortex of swirling blue and purple and random bits of debris. There were clocks and gears, and comfy chairs all spinning past him.  
Pretty birds, like you…  
Go to Wonderland…  
It’s only a dream, Nico…  
He kept falling, and the debris turned into a network of pipes covered in tar, and creepy doll heads. The light filtered red, and his last session with Octavian flashed through his mind.  
He reached the end of the piped, and felt his stomach coil painfully. He curled his body up, then he felt like his stomach exploded, but it didn’t hurt. His arms were flung out and he was floating, not falling. He felt white light surround him, and closed his eyes.


End file.
